Mayor Webb's State of the City Speech
Denver Mayor Wellington WebbWelcome to these beautiful gardens. Thank you for joining me on a date that is very important to me. Ten years ago today, on June 18th, 1991 you elected me to my first term as Mayor of the City and County of Denver. That day launched what I call the Denver Decade. I want to again recognize the support and counsel I received in that challenge and all others from the woman who has always been my most cherished ally and advisor, the First Lady of Denver, my wife Wilma J. Webb.

While a lot of people told me I faced long odds that year, I had a premonition we would prevail. You see, June 18th is also the anniversary of the victory of another historic underdog. It was June 18, 1815, that the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon.

Ten years ago, Denver was a good city and much had been done. Now much more has been done and Denver is a great city. I have had the opportunity to preside over Denver in an era of prosperity and economic progress unmatched in our city's history. Working with you, with neighborhood and business community leaders, and of course my elected colleagues at City Hall, we have built a city that is second to none.

Today I want to reflect on what made our decade so successful, but I want to spend more time talking about Denver's future.

Strengthening our city's Financial Foundation

At my first inauguration in 1991, I pledged to develop a long-term financial plan for Denver.  Today Denver's national credit rating has risen to AA+ as our cash surplus has more than tripled, from $33 to $103 million.

Public Safety

In my 1993 State of the City Speech, I addressed what came to be known as Denver's summer of violence. I pledged to increase the size and effectiveness of Denver's Police Department, with tougher penalties for street crime and increased employment and recreational opportunities for Denver's youth. We have provided our police officers with the tools they need to do their job, from a helicopter to new weapons and technology.

Today our Department of Safety has added eighty police officers to its ranks, developed programs that support youth activities and employment. With our Safe City Program, and progressive drug and alcohol programs administered by our new drug czar, these programs have helped reduced violent crime by more than 40 percent.

Parks and Open Space

The same year, I committed to the greatest addition of parkland to our city since the "City Beautiful" era of Mayor Robert Speer.

Today we have created and expanded parkland at more than fifteen sites throughout Denver. As a result, we have doubled the size of Denver's park system with more than 4700 new acres. We have created a new system of parks and restored natural areas along the Platte River, a system that helps knit our city together and has sparked some of the most exciting redevelopment opportunities in the nation.

Kids and Schools

In my 1994 State of the City speech, I promised to inaugurate a "Safe City Initiative" to provide youth with employment and recreational opportunities to help reduce youth crime.

Today the Safe City initiative has served more than 40,000 children and 20,000 families with more than $7 million in programs. Juvenile crime has decreased by more than 40 percent in this period.

Development and Redevelopment

I committed to implement a "Downtown Agenda" that would result in a new retail complex and increased housing construction in the center city.  

Today the Denver Pavilions, a 347,750-square-foot urban entertainment/retail center occupies two full city blocks along the 16th Street mall. Today we have 2200 new housing units in the downtown area.

In my 1994 State of the City speech, I pledged that Denver International Airport would be one of the aviation industry's greatest success stories.

Today DIA is ranked as one of the best airports in the U.S. by several national and international publications and by its major airline. The Federal Aviation Administration ranks it the least-delayed major airport in the nation. DIA's credit ratings have increased regularly since its opening, and its per-passenger costs have dropped by 30 percent since it opened.

Health Care

I committed to eliminating a huge deficit at Denver General Hospital and to creating a "new era in public health care" for Denver.

Today Denver Health's cash balance has increased from a deficit of $22.9 million in 1991 to a surplus of $53.2 million, a turnaround of more than 330 percent. Annual capital investment in the system has increased nine-fold to $29 million. These advances were made at the same time Denver Health's patient load was increasing by 40 percent.

The Environment

In 1997, I announced we would step up the fight to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to overturn their decision to bury radioactive wastes at the Shattuck plant site in our Overland neighborhood adjacent to the Platte River.

Three years later, after countless hours of work by neighborhood residents, city staff headed by Director of Environmental Health Theresa Donahue, and many others, the EPA announced an extraordinary reversal of its position and agreed to mandate removal of the waste from the Denver site.

Arts and Culture

The same year, I pledged to add internationally recognized sculpture to Denver's public art collection, including creation of the Denver Performing Arts Sculpture Park.

Today the City has commissioned major sculptures from four of the art world's finest sculptors, including Lipski's Yearling, Botero's Man and Woman, Dwight's Martin Luther King, and Borofsky's Dancing Figures.

We've accomplished all this and much, much more in the past ten years, but today we need to talk about the future.  

As a city, we are not an island unto ourselves.  No matter how much we accomplish, we still are very much affected by what the federal and the state government do or fail to do for us.  

An example is an issue that's critical to our seniors - Social Security.

There's no question that we need to take action to reform and improve Social Security - today's demographic and economic realities demand it. Some have suggested letting Wall Street invest our trust funds..

But some stock markets have plunged by half in the past month.

Our seniors have for generations depended upon Social Security as the rock-solid foundation of their retirement income. Instead of risking funds needed for food, for heat, and for rent in the stock market, let's build on our current system's foundation.

Let's leave the trust fund intact and conservatively managed. Let's provide our younger workers with increased flexibility to add to their Social Security by expanding tax deductible Individual Retirement Accounts.

We need more willingness to govern from the political center, to avoid putting our senior's future at risk, if the federal government is going to be a reliable partner in our efforts to help our older citizens.

Federal energy policy is another area that affects us all.  Every one of us here has been affected by huge increases in our utility and gasoline bills. Federal energy policy affects our monthly budgets, the air we breathe, the landscapes we love. It has a particularly important effect on Colorado's economy and our environment.

To protect our household budgets, our economic growth, and our environment, we need a new federal energy policy. Those who try to hold to the simplistic old production-versus-conservation debate must be shown a better way. Our federal policies should expand and balance our portfolio of available energy sources. We must increase energy production, conserve as much as possible and support new energy technologies.

Those who try to exploit the power interruptions in California to argue for abandoning environmental safeguards must be shown a better way. We must not abandon the traditions of environmental stewardship and resources management that we have nurtured since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. And we need to join the rest of the world in recognizing that global warming is real.

The other partner critical to our community's continued success is Colorado State government. And few issues that state government has repeatedly tried and failed to grapple with affect us more than managing our state's growth.

However effective our own community's efforts to minimize the negative effects of growth, acting alone we cannot preserve the quality of life we treasure.

We worked hard to support legislative attempts to help manage growth for our state. Unfortunately, these attempts ended in failure as some legislators refused to take anything more than the smallest of steps, steps that would provide the illusion of progress.

When it comes to managing Colorado's growth, we do not need and will not accept partial steps and half measures.

We need a growth bill that preserves what we treasure most in Colorado.

We need a growth bill that preserves our state's heritage by providing farmers and ranchers the financial ability to maintain their land in agricultural use and help control sprawl.

We need a growth bill that preserves our economic momentum and provides greater predictability for developers who play by the rules.

We need our Governor and our Legislature to step up to the plate and pass a growth bill that accomplishes these things that were promised when I joined leaders statewide in opposing Amendment 24 a year ago. If our state government cannot deliver on these promises, I will join in a door-to-door campaign for a statewide initiative that does meet Colorado's needs.

While we have accomplished much, we have even more underway.

We have just embarked on the greatest land development project in Denver's history, at the former Stapleton International Airport.

The redevelopment of Lowry Air Force Base is already well underway. Combined with Stapleton, Denver is adding nearly 6,500 acres of land to the city. No other landlocked city - as Denver was in 1991 - has enjoyed this much room to grow.

But Lowry and Stapleton are not about land.  They are about people and their future.  These two areas represent a blank canvas onto which we can paint whatever we can dream.  We have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create two entirely new Denver neighborhoods, fashioned with the values that have made Denver great.  If we are diligent in their completion, they will be enormous gifts to the next generation of Denver citizens.

I am proud to say that the development of both sites is now being guided by community-led visionary master plans and developed by progressive organizations.

At Stapleton, our developer Forest City has begun the acquisition of land from the City, construction of the first regional retail center is underway, and earthwork for a major new park will start soon. I want to thank Councilwoman Haynes for her tenacity and vision in helping guide this project.

We are also proud of the far-reaching affordable housing plan we have developed with our Forest City partner at Stapleton. Eight hundred of Stapleton's planned 8,000 units of "for-sale" housing will be "workforce housing" affordable to at rates affordable to low-income households.

Thanks to the hard work of many, especially Councilwoman Flobeck, the former Lowry Air Force Base is already home to hundreds of new homes and jobs. Now we need to move ahead on the parks, parkways, and recreational amenities that will distinguish this community as one of the metro area's finest new neighborhoods.

We need to complete other important projects underway

New and expanded recreation centers at Montbello in northeast Denver and Rude and La Alma in west Denver, and a new swimming pool in the Montclair neighborhood

New police stations in northwest, southeast, and northeast Denver

Cherry Creek Corridor improvements in south Denver

Neighborhood-level redevelopment projects from the Dahlia Shopping Center to our projects in Westwood in southwest Denver and East Village near downtown.

A new skateboard park near Commons Park, and spectacular new formal gardens at Centennial Gardens will help put the finishing touches on our Platte River Corridor Project.

I want to recognize Councilman Gallagher's consistent work with the Administration to ensure excellence in the maintenance of our parks system.

We are working to ensure that Winter Park remains a part our parks system, and helps to provide the support for the continuing excellence of that system. Councilwoman Reynolds continues to be an excellent asset for this and many other complex financial and management projects our city has underway.

Denver's Neighborhoods

Denver is a city where we treasure our neighborhoods.  The quiet, tree-lined streets and mature housing stock of our well-maintained diverse neighborhoods have always given Denver the appeal of a small town with the amenities of a major city.

The prosperity of the Denver Decade has significantly affected our neighborhoods.  Housing prices and rents have risen dramatically.  Ten years ago, we were concerned that moderate- and upper-income families were leaving the city for the suburbs, thereby turning Denver into a city for the poor.  Today, that trend has reversed, with thousands of well-off families returning to Denver's neighborhoods.  Meanwhile, older and close-in neighborhoods that typically provided the city's affordable housing suddenly became "fixer-uppers," as landlords and developers began to transform these properties to appeal to this influx of affluence.

Now, it is extremely difficult for poor, low- and moderate-income level families to find adequate housing in our neighborhoods.  Now, several of our traditionally multi-ethnic neighborhoods are in danger of losing their character due to the booming real estate market.  And now, for the first time in several decades, Denver has had the opportunity to create new neighborhoods thanks to the redevelopment of Stapleton and Lowry and to expand existing neighborhoods due to the adaptive reuse of buildings and land primarily in the center city.  

However, if we are not smart about this new development, we are in danger of allowing this growth to pass by those segments of the population in need of housing, and we are jeopardizing the quality of life and character of our existing neighborhoods.

For these reasons, my Administration has been working hard to keep pace with the tensions and challenges of rapid growth and construction.  We have been expanding the supply of affordable housing for lower income families.  We have been expanding our City's resources to assist housing production.

But we need to do more. We must continue to expand our resources to preserve the character of, and services to, Denver's thriving neighborhoods in the face of continued growth pressures. Our new land use plan, the first in decades promises to provide us with tools to help preserve what we love most in the neighborhoods most vulnerable to change throughout Denver.

We must also continue to assist our citizens in need to find adequate housing.  And we must focus our efforts on neighborhoods that might otherwise be left behind in our prosperity, particularly in the northwest, northeast and west sections of Denver.

Our Focus Neighborhoods program ensures that neighborhoods that most need additional public and private investment are the first to get it. Examples of this program's achievements include:

More than 150 blocks in the neighborhoods will receive new sidewalks, curbs, sod trees and handicap ramps in the coming eighteen months;

Ten elementary schools in these neighborhoods will receive new playgrounds, and thirty neighborhood alleys will be paved.

As part of our affordable housing program for these neighborhoods, 552 new or completely rehabilitated affordable housing units are being added to the housing stock.

And more than 100 low-income homeowners in these neighborhoods have received city financing for home improvements.

Closely allied to this initiative is the work of our industrial neighborhoods task force. Councilwoman Wedgeworth is leading this group to promote community safety, pride and quality neighborhood cooperation and spirit throughout Denver's industrial environs.

Denver's Arts

Denver's First Lady and I have always believed that our arts community should be as thriving and diverse as our city itself.

That is why during my Administration we have nurtured the growth and diversity of our arts and cultural community. We have supported the expansion and renovation of premier facilities like Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Denver Art Museum.  

We also have supported as never before the efforts of other individuals and organizations that have made significant and lasting contributions to arts and culture in Denver - ranging from Cleo Parker Robinson's wonderful dance theater to the pioneering Children's Museum of Denver.

We will continue to advance strong and creative cultural institutions - whether large or small.  All are a vital weave to the economic and spiritual fabric of our city.

Our wonderful Scientific and Cultural Facilities District distributes tax dollars from across our region to small and large arts and cultural organizations in Denver and surrounding counties. We are working hard to preserve this diversity by ensuring that the District is able to continue to thrive in the face of its current growing pains. With creativity, and with the cooperation and mutual support of our cultural community, we hope to assist the District to continue maintain the excellence of important institutions like the Colorado Ballet and Colorado Symphony Orchestra while beginning to provide needed support to Colorado's Ocean Journey.

The Southeast Corridor Project

Let us turning to another challenge facing our city -- helping our south central and southeastern neighborhoods cope with one of this decade's most ambitious construction projects, the Southeast Corridor I 25 expansion and light rail project. We have established a Southeast Corridor Initiative Team to work with the CDOT and heir contractors to ensure that the concerns of Denver's residents and businesses during the construction are addressed. I am pleased that thus office has already helped improve planning for the corridor.

For example, CDOT had originally planned to terminate the northern reach of the widening project at Logan Street, opening the door to a bottleneck at Lincoln and Broadway and encouraging cut-through traffic in our neighborhoods. We have now convinced CDOT to expand its work north to these major gateways to downtown to help avoid these negative effects.

We have also convinced CDOT to selectively close I-25 exit ramps near construction bottlenecks, again helping minimize cut-through traffic in adjacent neighborhoods. We are still looking for opportunities to knit together and beautify the neighborhoods affected by the project, and our project team is working with CDOT to coordinate the delivery of essential city services to the citizens and business owners during this project.

I want to thank Councilwomen MacKenzie and Foster for their leadership on these issues. Councilman Brown has also identified the Southeast Corridor project has a priority and is working hard to develop additional contributions to add to our problem-solving efforts.

The African American Research Library

Like the major business centers and buildings that define a city's economy, there are other facilities that provide a foundation for a city's cultural life.  These institutions provide our citizens and visitors with access to a rich cultural history of a world they may not otherwise know.  In this way, these institutions work hand in hand with our education system.

Today I am pleased to announce that we are creating a new cultural jewel to join the many others that nurture Denver's shared history. That institution is the African American Research Library. The Library will be a resource for the entire Rocky Mountain region, and an institution of national significance. It will provide for the cultural enrichment and education for our entire community.

Preserving our quality of life

But our city is more than buildings. It is a New Year's Eve party attended by a quarter of a million guests. It is Cinco de Mayo, Jazz on the Rocks, Juneteenth, the Greek Festival, and the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. It is fall colors on the Platte River trail, spring apple blossoms on Speer Boulevard, and Diego Rivera's work at the Museo de las Americas. It is outdoor cafes, bike stations, and doggie clean-up bags. And it is the wonderful ethnic, age and economic diversity of our city in the 21st Century.

We love our quality of life in Denver, quality built on four cornerstones:

Public safety
Helping families, kids and schools
Parks and open space
Economic opportunity for all

We cannot enjoy all Denver has to offer unless people feeling safe enjoying an evening walk in the park, or walking to a restaurant after a ball game or theater performance.

Our jail facilities are antiquated. Most were built 50 years ago with a capacity only two-thirds of our current need. As Denver has grown, and as our crime-fighting has become more effective, our jails have become more crowded and more dangerous. Our police, prosecutors and courts no longer always have an empty cell when they make an arrest or gain a conviction. We cannot jeopardize the safety of our people by allowing individuals who should be behind bars to stalk our community's streets.

No one wants to pay for a jail. No one wants to be neighbor to a jail. But Denver is not merely a collection of faceless, unconnected subdivisions. We are a city…we are a community.

A task force of Denver residents is working hard to identify the best site in our city for a new Justice Center…a contemporary piece of architecture that will house courts and a jail. The task force is going to have to make a tough call, and we have an obligation to support their judgment.

Because we have financed our debt conservatively and managed it prudently, many of the bonds we have issued over the past years will be paid off a few years from now. We have developed a financial plan that we believe, given current cost estimates, will enable us to build a new justice center with a property tax increase of only about four dollars per year compared to what the average Denver resident now pays.

We have an obligation to tell the public where the new justice center is going to be.

We have an obligation to tell the public how much it is going to cost to build and to operate.

And we have an obligation to do our best to provide the criminal justice facilities that the Denver of tomorrow will need. That is why I will be asking City Council to present to the voters of Denver the question of funding construction of a new jail, and why I will work hard for its passage.

We have other important needs in building for tomorrow as well.

The Auditorium Theater

Denver is fortunate to have world-class facilities to house virtually all artistic and cultural interests. One of our most precious and historic assets, our historic Auditorium Theater, especially needs our help now, however. The building has served our city well since it hosted the 1908 Democratic National Convention. But this architectural marvel is now nearly a century old, and badly in need of modernization and restoration.

Over the coming months, I will be working with our performing arts community and City Council to try to identify the resources necessary to improve the Theater without needing new tax revenues. Additional funds would be necessary to undertake the larger-scale and longer-term improvements necessary for the facility.

Denver Health

During the past decade, the health care and social service sectors have undergone massive upheaval.  Health care providers, foundations, elected officials and community organizations all have struggled to develop better strategies for developing and delivering their services to citizens.  For the average Denver citizen, navigating this system has never been more confusing or expensive.   

I have pledged to make Denver the healthiest city in the nation -- ensuring that every Denver citizen had access to quality and affordable health care.

A few years ago, to accomplish our goal, and to continue to provide one of the finest health systems in the nation, we divided the City's health agency into two entities.

Denver Health now provides health services as an independent authority. Our superb Department of Environmental Health helps ensure the quality of our air, water, and other precious resources that make Denver the special place it is.  

To ensure that our city maintains the superb system we have developed, we need to plan now for continued investment. In the turmoil of our nation's health care markets, it is not reasonable to expect Denver Health to continue to provide without additional assistance the new technology and facilities that will enable it to continue to thrive.

Denver has grown substantially in the last decade but our overall health care system, public and private, has actually lost more than one thousand hospital beds. Meeting the health care needs of our citizens is a central part of having a vibrant, productive city.

Denver Health's services have expanded from serving about 100,000 separate individuals in 1990 to almost 150,000 people in 2000. Denver Health's role will become even more important with the move of University Hospital to Fitzsimmons and the possible moves of the Children's and the Veterans Administration Hospitals to Fitzsimmons as well.  

I am proud that we will leave a legacy of best public health care system in America. With new capital investment Denver Health will match the quality of their facilities to the quality of their care.

Denver Botanic Gardens

The Denver Botanic Gardens that surround us today comprise one of the loveliest places our beautiful city. With over 400,000 visitors per year, the Gardens remain a favorite destination for metro area residents and tourists alike.

The Trustees, staff and members of the Gardens have worked hard to improve the gardens in the past few years. They have made wonderful progress, as we can all see today. The Trustees envision many important additions - like a Children's Garden, a beautiful new entrance from Cheesman Park and a Winter Garden Glasshouse -- that cannot be built until we provide additional resources for this wonderful treasure.

When these facilities are constructed, they will not only add to the enjoyment of the warm-weather visitor, but provide an important new cool-weather attraction to add Denver's cultural facilities.

The Denver Coliseum

With the recent opening of the Pepsi Center and the expected completion of the new Mile High Stadium, most of Denver's major sports and entertainment venues will have been constructed or renovated within the past decade. An important exception is the Denver Coliseum, home to the National Western Stock Show's Rodeo and many other events that are an important part of our western heritage.

Our Stock Show is one of the foremost in the nation, provides important economic contributions to Denver, reinforces our role as a regional agricultural center, brings activity and financial support to a neighborhood that needs it.

Our Coliseum is now antiquated and needs replacement. I have asked the National Western Board to work with our Division of Theaters, Arenas, Art Culture and Film to develop a plan for partnering in this important project. We have nearly completed development of the Central Platte Valley. Now we shall leave development of the northern valley to those who follow us.

Like any ordinary family or business we have to set priorities. I believe all of these projects are important to our future and worthy of public support. However, I believe the Justice Center is the most urgent need we face. As City Council debates these projects, I will work with them to develop a plan that will package these priorities for consideration by the voters in a future election.

Services for children

I am going to turn briefly to the set of issues that has formed a second cornerstone of my administration - how to help give parents the resources they need to make and carry out their own choices about raising their children well. We have worked on issues ranging from ending busing in the Denver schools to proposing required school uniforms in order to help create a sense of order in our schools. We have also helped finance the schools' truancy prevention program, placed police officers in each of our public high schools, and developed after-school clubs in every Denver middle school.

We've been working hard to help kids like the ones at Colfax Elementary, who studied civics and then deluged me with letters inviting me to meet them on what should have been their playground but was instead a hard, dusty patch of bare dirt.

Today I'm instructing my office of Education and Advocacy to help convert that bare dirt to green grass and new equipment with a $100,000 grant to those kids at Colfax Elementary for a new playground.

The problem the kids at Colfax brought to me was relatively easy to solve. But there are many other problems involving our children's day to day lives that don't make the front pages of our daily newspapers.  But they challenge us to act today … in order that they not end up as front-page headlines tomorrow.

One of the consequences of our economic success has been an increase in the number of households with young children in which both parents work - now more than 60 percent of our homes.

This absorption of parents into the workplace has helped launch Denver's prosperity. But in many cases it has meant fragmentation of the care of our children.  

And childcare for these families is an enormous expense … between $12,000 and $15,000 per year for a family with two children.  Can you imagine the impact on a service worker's family budget if you take $12,000 off the top of his earnings?

The problem of unattended children is not merely a problem facing parents.  Employers - who need productive workers -- find their employees' time and attention often disrupted by child-related issues.

We also know that many crime statistics in Denver peak just after 3PM … when school lets out.  Conversely, we know that kids who participate in after-school activities are twice as likely to graduate as those who do not.

Early this year I asked a group of Denver civic leaders and to examine the needs of Denver families. I asked them to recommend to Denver City Council and to me a framework for helping with the challenges that many of these families face as they try to ensure that their children are well cared for. The task force's work is progressing well and I expect their recommendations within the coming months.

And to the extent the Children's Task Force believes that additional resources are needed I would expect that group to bring forth strong evidence that more must be done.   I expect it to come forward with innovative, non-governmental solutions that will best address our at-risk children without creating a new bureaucracy.

If the Task Force makes a compelling case for additional funding for children …and if that solution takes advantage of underutilized community resources like our senior citizens to help solve these problems … then I will strongly support having the Task Force and others petition the issue onto the November General Election Ballot.

In the meantime, we are making another historic change in advancing our welfare reform program for our city's working poor families- the local earned income tax credit.   We have in our city more than 30,000 families, men and women who work hard, who often hold two or more jobs to make ends meet, but who still do not earn enough to allow for a decent standard of living. They are our co-workers and neighbors, and they are an essential element of our community.  They are also the foundation of our strong economy, working in entry-level service, clerical, manufacturing and construction jobs, and as paraprofessionals in our schools.   These individuals represent the best hope for Denver's 21st century economy to meet its workforce needs.   

In Denver, we are going to recognize the contributions of our low-income the nation's first earned income tax credit offered by a city, which will piggyback on the federal earned income tax credit. This credit, reserved for working Denverites, will be as high as $780 dollars.  It will be funded by existing federal dollars that are already dedicated for working poor families, but that have been spent through more complex and labor-intensive programs that are sometimes time-consuming and difficult to access.

Denver's local earned income tax credit will be administered through the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. At the same time, we will be unveiling a new Individual Development Account, in partnership with the Mile High United Way and other private sources, which will enable these same working families who receive the our new tax credit to get a 3-to-1 match of that money to buy a home, expand or start a business, or obtain educational or job training.  

This is a historic change in the way we are providing assistance to our city's working poor families; it's generating national recognition and calls from many other local governments who want to model their efforts on what we're doing.   I want to thank and recognize the outstanding professionals at the Internal Revenue Service, who are an essential partner in this endeavor, and the many Denver City Councilmembers who have provided such valuable assistance in helping to develop these new initiatives.

As I have reflected on the Denver decade and some of our hopes for the future, my thoughts have turned to the stewardship of what we have created. And my thoughts have turned to ensuring that the Denver of 2025 is as blessed with civic leadership - public and private, academic and philanthropic-as we are today.

When I graduated from college with my teaching degree -it was a few years back-- there weren't many opportunities for people like me. And so I did what a lot of kids do - returned to my neighborhood, and found work were I could, in my case in a factory.

Then one day my grandmother - always a true believer in what her grandson could become - cut out a notice in the newspaper about a neighborhood aide training program being run by the University of Denver. DU and a program called Model Cities Neighborhood Aid Training were looking for participants and I was looking for an opportunity to have my voice heard.

Participating in that program exposed me to issues important to our future and to other young people who went on to leadership roles in our community.

We learned to believe in the power of an engaged and informed citizenry. Together we learned to change the rules and create opportunities for the generation that followed.

As I have thought about my past, I have wondered where the next Wellington or Wilma Webb, or Ken Salazar, Joe Blake or Stephanie Foote may be. Maybe they are working a blue-collar job dreaming of something more. Maybe they spend their days in a cubicle processing paperwork, thinking about all the things in their community that could and should be better.

So today I want to talk to you about passing the torch. I want you to work with me to begin to hand the knowledge, talent and experience of my generation to the next.

The University of Denver helped open the door to these opportunities for me, and so it was to them that I turned with these thoughts. In Chancellor Dan Ritchie I have found a partner who shares my conviction that we must nurture young talent and engage a new generation in the civic process. Together we have developed a plan to achieve this through what I am calling the 2025 Commission.

As we move into our new century, it is important that we not lose sight of what brought us here and what we need to continue our progress. That is why this Commission will examine the progress we have made and develop a roadmap for the coming decades. It will address the roles of city government, the business community, the academic and non-profit communities, neighborhood groups, and other regional actors in moving Denver ahead into the next decades. The Commission will publish their findings - creating the beginnings of blueprint for Denver's next 25 years.

Ultimately, the 2025 Commission will be a mix of young and old, of democrat and republican, of established and future leaders. In the coming weeks, my office and the university will be telling you more about the 2025 Commission, and about opportunities to serve.          

Chancellor Ritchie and Dean Ricketson are here with us today. Chancellor and Dean please stand and accept my thanks for your partnership in this landmark effort.

In closing, to my fellow elected officials, I offer my thanks for your cooperation, for your vision, and for your counsel in the many successes. I hope our future together, regardless of its duration, will be marked by the civility that has characterized our past.

Let us dare to dream together.

Let us go forward to be jointly judged on our creativity, our energy, our vision, our work ethic and our sense of purpose.

If we are able to extend our successes of the past, our place in the hearts of Denver's electorate and in Denver's history will be forever secured.

You see, I believe in the American dream, a dream of freedom and opportunity.
The dream embodies dignity and justice.
It embodies a balanced coexistence between the individual and the community.
The dream embodies a community going beyond the self.
Our city is great because we have drawn upon the greatness of many legacies to form what is unique.
We have a great city because we are a great community.
Denver, God bless you all, and God bless our city.